2016 has finally come to an end and what a year it has been. I know it has been a hard year for a lot of you, but for me, 2016 was a year of change. My word for 2016 was change and what a year of change it was. I moved to Hamilton to start my Bachelor of Music at Vision College, made a whole lot of new friends, learned new things about being myself, independence and my relationship with God. Overall 2016 wasn’t as hard for me as it was for some others but I’ll take what I am given and be at peace with what was taken from my life. Thanks for all your support and let’s come into this new year with thanksgiving for what we have! Here is a roundup for 2016.

“For unto us a child is born….” Isaiah 9:6

For me, Christmas isn’t just another day off work, or a time to be around family and friends chilling out and swapping presents. In saying that, Christmas is a time for me to be around the people I love, and for the most part the day is spent with my family.However, as a Christian, celebrating Christmas to me means celebrating the birth of Jesus and remembering that he was just like me, someone ordinary who could so extraordinary things. It is a time to remember that Jesus chose to be like the rest of us, not a king or someone high up above other, but to become the lowest of the low. He chose who he would be, left behind all glory and power in heaven, and was born a baby in a manger. And every time I remember this it gives me hope because I too am ordinary, and he chose to come down to earth in that form so that I could relate more to him.

What does Christmas mean to you?

I have been challenged recently.

If you have been a long time reader of my blog you will know that I am a huge lover of animals and have always had pets as a family. Animals have always been a large part of my life since wanting to becoming a Vet as a child to my volunteer work at the SPCA in Canterbury and my current lifestyle choice of being a vegetarian. Being a Christian also means that I show love to what God love’s, which includes animals.

Life Lessons with Sarah-Elizabeth…

Or something like that. Today I turn 21 years old and apparently, I’m a “proper” adult now, so these are the lessons I have learnt in 21 years of life so far…

1. It’s important to have a sound belief system and values.

This is probably the most important lesson I have learnt in my life so far. Having a sound (healthy) belief system and values is extremely important as it is these things that shape your soul and who you are as a person. For me, it’s my faith in God and the belief that he is real and he created the world. My faith is the basis of my core values and it is the compass to my life.

Jesus Has Risen

28 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.

2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow.4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.

A photo posted by Sarah-Elizabeth (@spanishbluebell) on Mar 24, 2016 at 9:24pm PDT

This whole week has been one of remembrance for me. Normally I would be sitting in the middle of the Good Friday service at Southern Easter Camp with my youth group girls. We would be listening to the Easter Camp band Satellite (check out their awesome music here). However this year it has been spent with the few of us who have remained at the hostel ending with a worship jam session tonight.

To my dear readers,

It’s time to get personal. I have a got a big change coming up in my life next year and I want to share about it with all of you.

Since writing my last post my plans for next year have been thrown up in the air and changed and tumbled like leaves in the wind. A few months ago I had been accepted to study a Bachelor of Music at Vision College in Christchurch. Unfortunately due to some economic reasons they have decided to move their Music Campus to Hamilton and shut down the Christchurch one.

What this post is about though is that I have decided to move up to HAMILTON next year instead of staying in Christchurch. Vision College has decided to make Hamilton their main campus for Music, which is one of the reasons why they are closing the Christchurch school. As they have offered me zero fees for my first year I have decided to continue with my plans to study at Vision, just not quite the way I expected.

But first let me tell you a bit more about myself to explain what led up to this decision.

Right from the get go has been a GOD decision. There were a lot of things that have happened in my life that led me to this season of my life that I’m in at the moment and through all of it God has been at the center. God has been with me, and leading me through all the change in my life, in a way preparing me. I have been through so much change though, which has led me to try to control parts of my life that aren’t controllable and that as a Christian I know I should be giving control over to God.

Change has been a huge and constant thing in my life. I have lived in 3 different countries (Australia, New Zealand and Spain), and lived in 10 houses across 6 suburbs. I have studied at a total of 11 schools and universities (soon to be 12). I am one of those people who has had around 11 different email accounts, 2 Facebook accounts, made and left behind hundreds of friends, had 3 different versions of my name, and all of this for the one and only me. I think that is quite a lot accomplished for having only been alive for 20 years.

I never quite understood why my family had moved so much, other than it was kind of normal.

I actually thought it was normal for everyone! It has only been now that I understand why we moved so much and that it was a part of God’s plan for me. Our last big move happened at the beginning of my last year of high school. At first it really sucked as I thought I had finally made it all the way through 1 high school! I was leaving behind all my best friends, my church and netball club, and it was hard. I made all sorts of plans to try to convince my parents to let me stay, but in the end I realised that God wanted me to move with my family. This move was a bit different to all of our previous ones as for one, I was moving to study at my first christian school, and two, I knew that God had put me there for a reason (just not what the reason was.) Now it has been 3 years since my last move and the time has come once again for a change, but this time I am fully relying on God in the relationship I have built with him and the preparation that he has done in my heart and mind for this next season in my life.

In Deuteronomy 31:8 it says:

Looking back over all the change in my life I can see God walking along with me each step of the way.

And it’s in verses like this one above and the one below that I find my comfort. This is the reason I have had such peace of mind about making such a big decision as to move to Hamilton. This is a scary, new and exciting venture for me as it will be the first time I have moved out of home and moved to a different Island from my parents. Thinking back now to my last move and how I was wanting to move with my family, I realise God’s hand in that move as I would not have been able to cope with living alone at that age.

I feel at complete peace about moving to Hamilton, as that is the place that He wants me to be and that is the course I should be studying. I have been finding this a real test of my faith and trust in God as I have never relied on Him so heavily as I am now. And that is a good thing as it is extending me in my faith! For next year I have put all my trust in Him to provide for me in my finances, accommodation, study and personal life. There will be so many people I’ll be leaving behind in Christchurch who I have made deep connections with but it is definitely going to be one amazing adventure which I’m sure I won’t regret!

This has all happened quite literally in the last few weeks which is why have been too busy to write new posts. My head has been crazy full with all my options, prayers, opinions of others and thoughts of Christmas! Speaking of Christmas I will be sharing with you in my next post what I have got planned post wise for you this year!

Well done if you made it to the end of this post as I know it was a bit of an essay! I will definitely continue with my blogging next year but at the moment I don’t know how often I will get to post. I’ve just received a new computer as an early Christmas gifts from my parents so that means I will have a more reliable tool for blogging than my old computer. I can’t wait to see what the year ahead brings for all aspects of my life but God is Good all the time, and all the time God is Good!

My faith is not something that I have always been able to easily about. Just by being a reader of The Spanish Bluebell you might not have even been aware that I have a faith and what it is, and I was always comfortable with that. I never intended to write about my faith properly, except when mentioning what I had been up to briefly or around holiday times that were of Christian significance. But now I want that to change.

I don’t want to hide.

In a sense I have been hiding a very important side of me from my readers, because my faith is exactly that, very important. My faith makes up a huge part of my personality and who I am and by not sharing my faith in my writing, I feel like you aren’t understanding who I really am. Over the past year I have been umm-ing and ahh-ing about whether to write about my faith on The Spanish Bluebell or to start a new blog. Ultimately I feel like it would be too hard for my poor unorganised soul to keep up with 2 blogs when I haven’t been doing the best job with keeping up with this one. So I have decided that I will incorporate my faith writings into The Spanish Bluebell. I have created a new posts tab under the Life tab called Faith Writings where you will be able to find any new (or old post) where I discuss my faith, what it means to me, how it affects the way I live my life, as well as some more personal faith posts.

Of course all my faith posts will still pop up in my main feed, and I am not going to apologise for that. If you are one of my readers who isn’t interested in posts on faith and Christianity, you don’t have to read those posts. I will still be doing my normal lifestyles, travel and beauty posts, so please don’t feel like there is nothing for you here anymore. I also don’t want to make any of my readers feel like I am trying to “convert you” or something, because I am not. Like I said I just want to be honest about who I am and sometimes that will require me to talk about my faith.

Change is inevitable.

This rings true for me every day. Looking at a timeline of my life since I was born and a timeline of the last year it would be stupid of me to think I was ever in control over what has happened at any stage in my life, except for my own decisions. I have been told so many times as a part of my faith that my plans aren’t always going to work out, and its true. As a Christian believer I am told that I should expect change constantly and not fight it, and I try. But it is so hard and you encounter feelings of disappointment, anger, self-doubt, frustration, discouragement, confusion and many other feelings.

Right now I feel all of the above.. This morning I had a call to say that the college campus I was enrolling to study at in 2016 is having close down their music school at the end of this year. This whole day my head has been in a swirl of all of these feeling and because of that I am in no fit state to make any decisions about my future for next year. I mean it took me a good 6 months to get to a place where I thought I had figured out the direction God was wanting to take my life but now I am no longer sure. So I have been praying, and the above verse came to me and spoke to the hurt I am feeling.

I am so grateful to have even been given to opportunity and encouragement to study my faith and music together, and for someone to think I was good enough. Right now though, I am trusting in God, and knowing that he has something else for me. I admit is hard to do when I am the sort of person who likes to be in control and have a plan. For now though I am just working through my disappointment and getting back to the stage of figuring out what to do with my life.

How do you cope with the more stressful changes in your life?

Everyone has something or some things that they are passionate about. For me my biggest passions are my faith, Singing, Writing, and Makeup. These are rather obvious passions which I have always been quite conscious about. One passion that I haven’t mentioned, however, is Photography. It wasn’t until last year when I went on the Girls Weekend to Hanmer that I realised how much of a passion photography was for me. It was on that weekend that I took one of my favourite shots (above) that showed me that I was actually good a scenic and nature photography and how much it inspires me.

Words are powerful things, and sometimes in life just a few words can mean a whole lot to you. They can encourage, make you happy, make you reflective and guide you. That is why I want to share 10 of my favourite quotes which are currently helping me through life.

#1

Image credit to The Star (thestar.com)

Some days I feel like nothing I do is right and that I have let a lot of people down or know that I have done things that I shouldn’t have. While I was reading Anne of Green Gables this is one of the quotes that stuck out the most and has really helped with those feelings of hopelessness with my current situations. Lucky for me, I also have people around me who have a similar mindset which is really encouraging! Now I like to treat every new day as if my slate has been wiped clean. L. M. Montgomery included a lot of great Christian themes in Anne of Green Gables. so this quote is, spiritually, also a great reminder that I am forgiven because Jesus died for my sins.

I thought that some of you would enjoy reading a creative piece that I wrote during the 40 Hour Famine 2014.

Hope you enjoy it!

Sarah-Elizabeth

xoxo

The I’s Have it All!

By Sarah-Elizabeth

As a child I who never had all the latest things. My parents weren’t the sort of people to spend money on silly little toys like Tamagotchis, Furbys, and Bratz dolls. I had skipping ropes, some Barbie Dolls from when I was 4 years old, and a little collection of soft toys.

You didn’t even know what they were.You may have had a bit of rope for skipping and a worn old football, but soft toys weren’t even sold in your town…

In October last year I went on a women’s retreat with for the ladies in my church. It was really quite an amazing experience for me and led to some good bonding with some of he girls my age. All the different activities, worship time and messages were terrific. It was the first time I had been to a retreat like that and I hope it won’t be the last.

Anyway onto the actual reason for this post. On the last afternoon I was having some quiet time with God,sitting in the kids playground up on one of the towers ( still a bit of a child at heart, hence the playground being the most relaxing and surprising secluded area to sit). While I was sitting there I saw a wood-pigeon in a tree trying to reach some berries at the end of a very thin branch. It looked like it had gotten stuck and couldn’t get its wings out of the branches . [Read more…]

“Believing in even the possibility of a happy ending is a powerful thing.”

– Mary Margaret (Once Upon a Time)

As you may have gathered from my last post I have been watching quite a bit of Once Upon a Time lately. Today I was watching the latest episode of Season 3 when something Rumpelstiltskin said really hit hard to me, not just for myself but for a lot of people I know.“We had a chance to be happy, but I was afraid.” [Read more…]

Who will I be in 10 years from now? Dear future me… I hope I like you

So this morning, while sitting on the couch in my comfy shorts and T-Shirt, wrapped in 3 blankets (because I never seem to understand what the weather is doing), I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed like I do most mornings. That is not what this blog post about because no one wants to know about my mundane Facebook perusing. Anyway, I cam across this article from viralnova.com about this 12-year-old girl writing a letter to her future self title “Dear Future Me…”. No normally people would just go “Oh that’s cute” and keep scrolling on. However if you see this link you shouldn’t do that and here’s why.

On January 5th, 12-year-old Taylor Smith passed away from complications with pneumonia. It left her parents, family, and friends absolutely devastated. She was a joyful child just like any other, full of life.

But it was after some time had passed that they made a discovery they’d never forget.

As her parents went through her belongings, they found several letters Taylor had written to others.

But one was very different. It was a letter to her future self. It wasn’t supposed to be opened until 2023, but because she had passed on, her parents decided to open it.

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!!

Christmas 2013 on Child of Ponderings

To my dear readers:

I am writing these Christmas greetings to you quickly before I go out to the Christmas morning service with my parents at their church. It will be the first time I have gone to their church so that will be a pretty interesting experience to start this joyful day off with.

I hope you all have a very wonderful day today with your family and friends.